12.12.2012

Over on the mothersite today, Magic: the Gathering fans were treated to another installment of the Planeswalker's Guide to Gatecrash. The brilliant minds on the Wizards of the Coast's Creative Team are adept are world-building and weaving intricate story lines. Today's article 'Planeswalker's Guide to Gatecrash: Part 2' provides updates to the stories of Orzhov, Simic and Gruul guilds from Ravnica and adds a wonderful layer of flavour to the game. Look for some new, not seen before art previews which will likely see card print in the upcoming Gatecrash set in this, the Return to Ravnica block.

The Orzhov guild was founded on the belief that wealth is power, that structure breeds wealth, and that guilt creates structure. The guild is run like a combination religion, credit-lending agency, and crime syndicate, with an ostentatious hierarchy of priests, enforcers, and ghostly councilors ruling over a congregation of guiltbound servants, indebted ghosts, and thrulls. Many Orzhov guild members truly believe that their rule is necessary for making Ravnica the best it can be, and they are unscrupulous in their methods of making sure they seize power. Most Ravnicans see the Orzhov for the corrupt organization they are, but many are lured in by their promises of wealth, prestige, and longevity.~

Arts by Maciej Kuciara / Willian Murrai

The Simic Combine is Ravnica's steward of nature and the wild; its mission is to preserve the natural world even as Ravnica's cities continue to grow. The guild seeks to protect the elements of the plane that are incompatible or mutually exclusive with its overpopulated, urban conditions. This is not easy, of course, because the forces of civilization are so prevalent on Ravnica that they threaten to subsume anything that runs counter to them. But the Simic practice a strange combination of detachment and holism that provide a kind of separation from the larger urban systems—a separation on which their conservation mission depends.~

Arts by Kev Walker / Raymond Swanland

The Gruul are a loose affiliation of savage clans that squat in Ravnica's alleyways, abandoned zones, and ruins. Many of the Gruul clans have come to occupy the Rubblebelt, a broken thread of war-ruined land and settlements that begins near the outskirts of Ravnica's Tenth District. Warfare among the Gruul is constant and almost ritualistic; the Gruul believe that only the strong should survive and rule. The Gruul are the most disenfranchised and hold the most anti-civilization views of all of Ravnica's guilds, and as such are the most ill at ease in a world covered by city.~